


The inconvenience of being loved

by luffywhatelse



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Arguing, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, I should say Sanji x Nami, Jealousy, Love Confessions, Love Triangles, Luffy x Nami, Lunami, One Shot, POV Vinsmoke Sanji, Possessive Behavior, Romance, Triangle, because it's the two of them together, but actually is a Luffy x Nami, envy - Freeform, heartbroken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25511764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luffywhatelse/pseuds/luffywhatelse
Summary: *MODERN AU*"If Luffy kissed you first, would you be with him right now?"He asked her after making love, the moment when Sanji always wanted to talk seriously and Nami was less inclined to. In fact, she sighed but got up on her elbows just enough to look him in the eyes."Sanji-kun, remember three things," she brushed his hair from his face. "The first is that I feel good with you. The second is that nobody can convince me to do something I don't want, not even you."Sanji stopped her hand and kissed it. "And the third one?""I don't lie. Before asking a question, ask yourself if you really want the answer."
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy/Nami
Comments: 6
Kudos: 40





	The inconvenience of being loved

"What do you think I should do?" he had managed to ask her on a summer evening, when the air was hot and sticky.

He was nineteen and she was eighteen. Nami was looking at Luffy, it was evident. Nami always looked at Luffy. Luffy who, at that moment, let himself be dragged here and there by Usopp, in the chaos of the matsuri, and who engaged in several games showing his infinite skills, inexplicable talents, which didn't require practice because they came from him, from the mysterious energy that's his fulcrum, impetuous like a waterfall.

"I don't know, Sanji-kun," Nami replied, smiling with folded arms, as if nothing was happening and Sanji hadn't gathered courage for days, before asking her that question. "What do you want to do?"

"I just stopped asking myself what I'd like," he replied in a low voice, so low that he didn't think Nami would have heard it, but she did and smiled at him.

"I'm glad to hear you say that, Sanji-kun."

"Yeah," he looked away, "but don't kid yourself, I'm not an angel like you."

Nami laughed. She had a beautiful laugh and it occurred to him that he had never made Nami laugh, not really, not bursting out with tears. Who knows if Luffy does. Definitely he does.

"I'm not an angel, Sanji, I have my flaws, too."

"Like what?"

Nami looked back at him and smiled with a calm that, like the sea, could conceal anything. He couldn't understand her and therefore he couldn't insist.

Chopper's ringing voice reached them: "Come on, Luffy, go straight for the giant penguin! Go, go! "

Luffy smiled, took aim with the air gun and fired. Bang, bang. Two shots, two centers.

~~~

He had kissed her one night at a bonfire on the beach, when they were alone, just out of the water still wet and out of breath. He had flirted with her all evening, until she seemed too exhausted even to give in to his coaxing. But then Nami came out of the water and tossed her hair back. The drops dripped onto her skin which reflected the moonlit glow. Then Sanji had done it. To not always feel as if he should hold his breath. He had kissed her because he was exasperated by her, by the grueling desire that dragged him towards her. How did Luffy fight it? After a year, Sanji's energy was drained.

"Ok I know, I made a mistake but what should I have done, what did you expect? Now say what you want, do what you want," he snarled immediately, letting her go. He was impatient enough to draw her to him and bite her, but too coward to look her in the eye.

"What should I expect?" Nami asked him, without changing her tone of voice. "Nothing, what do you want me to expect from you?!" she screamed at him, without even understanding why, "You never do anything! Neither you nor Luffy!"

Sanji didn't reply. He didn't ask her what Luffy had to do with it and Sanji understood that she knew that the thing between the three of them was no longer a secret. He also understood, in a less defined way, that both of them expected it would be Luffy to kiss her first, as for a sort of right of precedence, of ownership, but it was a good thing for both of them that it hadn't happened. If nothing had to happen between them - and it didn't have to, in fact, he thought with a jealousy that upset him - he wanted Nami to reject Luffy herself, not him to beat Luffy on time. He felt guilty because he seemed to have betrayed Luffy, and was disgusted because he couldn't regret it.

"Stupid," said Nami after a while.

He was twenty years old, she was nineteen, and they kissed each other for a long time, as if their kisses were water and they had been thirsty for years.

~~~

"If Luffy kissed you first, would you be with him right now?"

He asked her after making love, the moment when Sanji always wanted to talk seriously and Nami was less inclined to. In fact, she sighed but got up on her elbows just enough to look him in the eyes. 

"Sanji-kun, remember three things," she brushed his hair from his face. "The first is that I feel good with you. The second is that nobody can convince me to do something I don't want, not even you."

Sanji stopped her hand and kissed it. "And the third one?"

"I don't lie. Before asking a question, ask yourself if you really want the answer."

~~~

One day Luffy called him. It was rare, especially while they were studying for exams.

"Hello?" he answered cheerfully. 

But Luffy said nothing and it was already beginning to irritate him.

"Hey, Luffy?"

"I think I argued with Nami."

Sanji dropped the pen on the book. "What do you mean you _think_?"

"I'm not sure."

"How can you not be sure? Did you and Nami have an argument or not?"

"She didn't want me to sleep over at her place."

"… I'm sorry?"

"Robin invited me, but Nami said I was going home."

"Well, it seems obvious to me."

"Why?"

He closed the book imagining he was throwing it in his face. "Because we're together."

"So, what's that got to do with it?"

"How, _what it's got to do_?"

"I don't understand."

"Well, thank goodness at least Nami understands."

"I didn't want to sleep with her."

"That would be the last straw!"

"Talk to Nami."

"To tell her what?"

"That is not a problem for you if I stay over with her."

"Of course it's a problem!"

"But I told you I don't want to sleep with her! I would never do this to you. And neither would Nami. I'm offended you'd even think so."

"... it still bothers me."

"You sleep with Zoro!"

"He's my roommate!"

Luffy was silent. Sanji could imagine his absurd and naive face as he rearranged his thoughts.

"So I can't sleep with Nami anymore," he concluded.

"No."

"I don't know if I like this thing."

"Learn to like it."

"There are a lot of rules."

~~~

"How could you wait?"

Luffy stopped petting a cat. Sanji was twenty-one years old, Luffy was nineteen, and they sat together on the steps leading to Nami's place. They had helped her move to Sanji's and now only Robin lived there.

"I've always wondered," Sanji continued "You had her there, why didn't you take her?"

“Nami wasn't something to _take_. She was free and chose you. She's attracted to you."

"That's because I attract her to myself."

"Is it different?"

"Yes, because I have to make an effort. If I let go, she'll come back to you."

Luffy gave a half smile. The cat mewed under his hand. “Nami doesn't feel tied to anything on dry land. She would come back to me because I will always be there for her. Like a captain for his nakamas."

 _Are you serious?_ Sanji would have liked to ask him, _do you seriously believe this shit?_

"How did you let her go?" he asked instead "You have seen her every day, you still see her every day... I wouldn't stand it." He paused. “Seriously, Luffy. How the fuck did you let her go?"

Luffy picked up the cat and looked him in the eyes. "It's not a choice when there's no alternative, don't you think?"

~~~

Sanji was twenty-two, she was twenty-one, and they were arguing again.

"Why are you acting like this?" Nami asked.

"Because I'm jealous," Sanji replied.

"You're obviously jealous, and I can't stand it. I don't sleep with Luffy, I don't live with Luffy, I didn't leave my home for Luffy."

"It's lucky that he moved too, isn't it?"

"I don't want to answer you. I don't like talking to you when you do that."

Sanji sat down beside her on the sofa. He stayed like this for a long time and then leaned on her shoulder.

"Nami, do you love me?"

"Yup."

"And... are you happy?"

"I think so."

"What do you mean you _think so_?"

"You can't ask me if I'm happy. Either I'm happy or I'm not. Asking creates doubts, and doubts make me a little more unhappy. Before you asked, I was happy. Now I don't know anymore."

Sanji jumped up. "Shit, stop speak in code, I can't stand it!"

“I don't speak in code, Sanji. I don't know how to make you understand me."

"But he would understand you, that's what you mean."

"You did this to yourself, as usual," she whispered.

"Say what you want, Nami, say that you'd like to have us both," Sanji said in a fit of cruel and blind jealousy, "That you will never be happy with just one of us because all that you want is just to know that we love you. You want us to kneel at your feet and beg for your sweet ass. You can't give yourself to someone, Nami. You're not capable of it. "

He could feel her heart breaking in the silence of the room. He realized that he had gone too far but he couldn't apologize to her, nor take back what he had said, even if he wanted to.

Nami asked in a whisper, "What do you want, Sanji?"

"I want _you_ , Nami. I want you like I never wanted anything else in my life, and what makes me sick is that I seem to have less of you now than when we weren't together."

"I'm here, Sanji. If you can't see me, or don't want to accept me, I don't know what to do. "

"I want more."

"Then maybe you want something I can't give you."

"And what do you want, Nami?"

"I want you to stop hurting me."

"Because he wouldn't, right?"

"Just because it hurts."

"What is love if we don't hurt each other?"

"What kind of love is it, if we hurt each other?"

~~~

"I was jealous of you, Luffy. And Nami is right, I still am."

"Why?"

"Because I can bind her to me, but you will always own her."

"Why do you think that's good? Why do you think that someone's love is measured by the possibility of binding or possessing? I don't understand you, Sanji. It doesn't make me proud to think that I could take her freedom away."

"Don't believe I want to do it. I only know how much... " he stopped. "But sometimes I can't help it. I need it, I don't know why. Maybe just to know I can do it."

"And how hard could it be to bind someone? You talk as if it were a talent, or a proof of love, but it's not. It doesn't take much to tie a person who loves you, Sanji, whoever does it. You're affectionate and caring like a real knight from a romance novel. You know how to love much better than that."

"Then it's she whom I cannot love. That's why I envy you, Luffy. You two are the same, you..."

"Yeah, yet we're not together," Luffy interrupted him.

He had never been so blunt and raw with him. Never, in all the time he'd known him. They paid the bill and didn't talk about it anymore, because otherwise the only thing Sanji would have said was "if it had been _you_ kissing her that day..." but he didn't want to know how that story would end.

~~~

First thing, entering the apartment, Nami put the kettle on.

Secondly, she said, "I met Luffy."

"And what have you done?"

"What we always do, we talk. I want to kiss him, he wants to kiss me, but we just talk."

“Of course, Luffy wouldn't do it. He's too fair. He's not like us. He's the king. I'm just the queen's knight."

Sanji didn't want to say that. Yet he said it.

Why could he never act as he should have? Why did her impassive expression - despite he knows how much fragility and how much love she hid - still made him mad? Why couldn't they be as compatible as they loved each other? Why can't love be easier?

"What do you mean?"

"That if he kissed you, you would kiss him again, as you did with me that day."

Nami took the tea from the jar.

Sanji insisted, "You're not even denying it."

“There's no point in denying when you talk like this. You always do this..."

"... _to yourself_. I know. I'm fed up. Why don't you do something too?"

"I do. I'm sorry you can't see it."

"Would you like to fuck him?"

Nami was stunned. But she still dipped a tea bag. "I already told you, don't ask questions if you don't really want to know the answer."

"Tell me if you'd like to fuck him."

"Yes."

"So you want to fuck him or do you want him to fuck you?"

"He fucks me."

"Why?"

"Because the thought turns me on."

"Do you think about it often?"

Nami took a breath. "Sanji..."

"Tell me."

"Yes. Now stop it. "

"Do you touch yourself thinking about him?"

"Sometimes."

"Do you think of him when you do it with me?"

"Never."

"How do you think it would be with him?"

"I don't want to tell you."

"Do you think he would cuddle you, lay you down on a bed of roses?"

"Stop it, Sanji," she spilled her tea.

"I asked you to tell me how the fuck you think it would be!"

"I think it would be great, are you satisfied?!"

"No, you have to tell me why!"

"What do you mean, that I can't make you come?"

"No, sometimes you don't! Sometimes I hate when you touch me, because you just defy me, you put me on the spot, expecting so much of me! You bury me in your devotion and I feel smothered and obligated like I don’t have the right to complain! You think I never love you enough, then come to me as if I were the prize you won and you believe this turns me on, but it doesn't! It makes me sick!"

Sanji was dazed. Nami had turned red in the face. It seemed she was going to cry because her eyes were full of tears, but then Sanji realized: she wouldn't cry, and not because she didn't care. She suffered. Because he had forced her to go against her nature. Suddenly he remembered that time when he asked Luffy " _how could you wait?_ " and it was only now clear to him. He had waited because he knew it.

Nami took a deep breath.

"Are you happy now?" 

He didn't need to answer. She rubbed her eyes and continued, "If I have sex with Luffy it's because I want it, not because you make me feel miserable."

Sanji tried to get closer, but there was boiling water between them. He forced himself to calm down.

"Tell me you don't love me anymore and let's get it over with."

"It wouldn't be true."

"Then tell me you don't love him."

"That wouldn't be true either."

"So what's true?"

"That I was happy the day you kissed me."

"And now you want me to kiss you?"

"No, not now. I can't even stand the idea."

"I would like to kiss you instead."

"I know. We always want to kiss at different times."

"Maybe that's the problem."

"That's what I mean."

"And what does that mean?"

Nami didn't answer and started cleaning. Sanji was twenty-three, she was twenty-two and they had just broken up.

~~~

Nami was in no hurry to get her things back. She only went to get her bikinis two weeks later. Sanji followed her into every room, but avoided speaking so that he doesn't end up begging her. She changed her jeans and left the phone in her pocket. Sanji waited for her to go to the bathroom. He wasn't looking for messages from Luffy. He didn't want to read them and actually Luffy was never the kind of guy who sends you cute texts. If he wanted to tell you something he just came to you, or at least he called you. In fact, what he found were his own messages, so he read the last one.

_Nami, forgive me. You don't know how difficult it was. I want you so much and I don't know when I will stop cursing myself. Take the time you need, you know how I feel for you and it won't change._

He was Nami's baggage, with all his weight, his extraordinary ability to screw up the good things he loved. He left her phone on the table and lay down on the sofa. He was angry with Nami, who despite the fine words had waited less than fourteen days to get into another man's bed, but even more he was pissed off with Luffy and his fucking sparkling crown.

Before leaving, Nami tried to talk to him, but he didn't answer, even if he wanted to. Sanji started to cry and Nami didn't comfort him, even if she wanted to. Afterwards, he didn't hear from her for a long time until Sanji wished her a happy twenty-third birthday.

~~~

"You never told me how it is."

Nami pretended not to understand, but blushed.

"It's none of your business," she replied after a while. She was more beautiful than usual, and she was always very beautiful.

"Come on. I'll asking him. "

"He won't tell you anything."

"Yes, if I insist. And you know I will. "

Nami surrendered: "It's great."

"So, is it as you imagined?"

"Better."

"Better than me? And don't say it's different. "

"It's different."

" _Shit_."

Nami puffed. She was playing with a strap of her sandal. After a while she said, almost shyly, "We have the same pace."

"Good. Let me know if you two need a drummer."

"Don't worry about it ."

Sanji laughed. Then slowly, carefully, he smiled at her.

“I'm happy, Nami-san. No kidding."

"I know. You're always honest, Sanji-kun. Too bad that sometimes you act like an asshole."

Sanji laughed again and looked at Nami, she in turn looked at the cherry blossoms that a gust of wind had lifted off the ground revealing a path through the trees. _I've had three years_ , he thought beginning to remember, just then, all the beautiful, simple and perfect things like that moment. Like a day when he saw Luffy make her laugh to tears, and he understood that there could be more, besides what he himself felt for her, more than desire, more than possession. Something that never disappears. He finally understood how Luffy could let her go.

So, at twenty-six, Sanji let her go.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I need to give you an explanation for this fic. I wanted to describe a possessive Sanji, because he's afraid of losing Nami, well aware of the indissoluble bond between her and the captain; I thought of Nami who would like to be chosen by Luffy, "taken" by Luffy ("the thought turns me on"), not because she's not independent, on the contrary, but because she likes the thought that Luffy, always taken by many other things, can choose her of his own will, that he want her for himself; and I thought of Luffy, for whom the most important thing in this situation is Nami's smile and as long as she's happy he wants her to be free, even without him. So he doesn't claim her... also because he doesn't know that he's the one she wants.
> 
> And as for Luffy who gives love advice to Sanji the prince (the knight), it didn't seem OOC to me because I saw it not so much as love advice but as the classic words of wisdom, admirable for their simplicity (right to the point), that the captain churns out when it comes to serious things. In this case, Nami is something he cares about a lot.


End file.
